LIBRARY OF^CONGRESS. 

Chap...r..... Copyright No. 

Shelf„_-C5iU5 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



LIGHT-BEAEER 



OF 



LIBERTY. 

BY 

J. W. SCHOLL. 

• • • 

What the brain has thought, and the hands have 
wrought, 
And the soul has dreamed could be. 
Is the only worth in the whole wide earth, 
And the measure of life, for me ! 

— The Author, 



BOSTON : 

EASTERN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

6l COURT STREET. 



1 






Copyrighted 1899, 

By 
J. W. SCROLL. 



All Rights Reserved. 

TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




SeCONU COPY, 






,. Ipdex 



^ PAGE. 

Preface. 

Author's Announcement. 

The Light-Bearer Of Liberty i 

The Spectral Visitant 45 

Jesus Of Nazareth. 79 

My Creed 99 

My Dust 113 

Fragment From UupuBLisHED Masque. . . .117 

A CORDON OF SONNETS. 

Christus 123 

Truth, The Redemptor 124 

Faith 125 

Atonement 126 

Resurrection . . 127 

The Everlasting Life 128 

Transfiguration 129 

Immortality 130 

Calvary 131 

Ekklesia 132 

Gethsemane 133 

Olivet 134 

The Paraklete 135 

Hypatia 136 

To a Serpent 137 

• • • 

The Birth Of A God . 139 

Agnosticism 140 

Thoughts 143 

My Pious Comforters 145 



. . preface . . 

¥¥ 

The human heart and the human brain 

Are guides and sanctions enough for me, 

For your blessed bibles and creeds are vain, 
To the man that pants for liberty. 

¥¥ 




HE raison d'etre of this little 
volume is found in the dic- 
tum of the Rev. Homer 
Wilber; ''Men do not 
make poetry, it is made 
out of them!* It is the 
incarnation of the rare 
moments in the poet's life, when the mind is 
at white heat and his heart beats like a trip- 
hammer. There is something inevitable 
about it. 

The several poems, contained herein, 
will, the author trusts, speak for themselves. 
Some will make enemies ; some, friends. 
Friends among those who find that the rags 
and patches of a theological system, though 



PREFACE. 



once considered royal purple woven in with 
threads of gold, leave them naked in the face 
of the universe, and who are striving to weave 
themselves a new garment whole and with- 
out a seam. Enemies among those conserva- 
tives, who constantly witness their own de- 
feat but anathematize the victors ;who cling 
to the old sinking,barnacle-covered ship when 
all their fellow-passengers have taken to the 
life-boats ; who would die with the "faith of the 
fathers" rather than acknowledge that a new 
world of thought has arisen, with a new faith 
that leaves the greater mysteries as myster- 
ies still, but gives full leash to reason. 

It is not too much to hold, that any 
man who has kept abreast of Truth ; who has 
in his mental possession the chief facts of 
biblical criticism, of archaeology, of history 
and especially the history of thought-systems, 
of astronomy, geology and psychology ; who 
has not stultified his mind by long indulgence 
of prejudices, must assent to the following 
propositions : 

(i) That the Bible is not a single book, 
but a Literature, containing many myths 
and legends and crude early views of the 
world, that it is not entirely consistent 
throughout, nor chronologically arranged, 
and that it is to be studied by the 



PREFACE. 



same methods and judged by the same 
standards which are applied to all other 
ancient literary remains. 

(2) That the two-fold story of the crea- 
tion in Genesis is inconsistent in itself, 
and cannot in either form be harmonized 
with the facts of geology and must be 
considered a myth incorporated into 
Hebrew tradition from extra-Hebrew 
sources still older. 

(3) That the story of Adam and Kve 
and the Fall is simply a myth. 

(4) That man has been proven to have 
existed on the earth, in Egypt, in France, 
in Denmark, in England, in Switzerland, 
and in America, for long ages before 
the biblical date of the creation of Adam 
and Eve. 

(5) That the Deluge of Noah is a myth, 
and the preservation of all species of 
animals in the ark an impossibility. 

(6) That the rainbow has existed 
wherever sunlight fell on falling rain and 
has refracted into a human eye, and that 
its first appearance at the subsidence of 
the Deluge is mythical. 

Ill 



PREFACE. 



(7) That the story of the confusion of 
tongues at Babel is mythical, and con- 
trary to all known facts of philology. 

(8) That Satan has no real existence. 

(9) That there is no real hell of fire 
and brimstone. 

(10) That there is no unimpeachable 
evidence of the existence of angelic 
orders of cherubim and seraphim and 
the lesser servants of Jehovah, but that 
these were the necessary complements 
of a rude anthropomorphic god, who 
could not be everywhere at all times. 

(11) That "witch-craft" and "demoniac 
possession" are and always have been 
delusions or misnomers of diseased con- 
ditions. 

(12) That drought, pestilence, storms, 
earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, are 
never "divine visitations" or "satanic 
machinations", but always natural phe- 
nomena. 

(13) That prophecy was never specif- 
ically predictive. 

(14) That no part of the Bible claims 
for itself divine inspiration or inerrancy. 

IV 



PREFACE. 



(15) That no miracles now take place, 
(using miracle in its accepted sense of a 
temporary annulment, change or rever- 
sal of the ordinary processes of nature.) 

(16) That the evidence of miracles in 
the past, (such as raising the dead, 
turning the shadow back on the dial- 
plate, making a metallic axe swim, feed- 
ing the multitude on the loaves and 
fishes, turning water into wine, etc.) is 
not sufficient to be convincing. 

(17) That there is no evidence for the 
efficacy of prayer in changing the course 
of nature, except in a limited perfectly 
natural way by its effect upon the per- 
son praying and upon the hearers, and 
this ought not be counted an exception. 

(18) That the idea of God is a natural 
human conception, and as men have 
become better, their notions of God 
have become better. 

(19) That the human race as a whole 
has steadily risen, and that any people's 
religion is a human product, largely an 
unconscious growth, that measures its 
elevation, and is never a revelation from 
without. 



PREFACE. 



(20) That the whole Universe was not 
originated and fitted up especially for 
the use and delia-ht of man. 



"&' 



It is possible to hold these views, and 
yet be a factor in the best social, civil, eth- 
ical and religious life possible among men. 
Not one of the views negatived in these 
propositions is worth a fig to humanity, but 
the belief of all or most of them would make 
a mad-house of the human brain, and fill life 
with delirium. The moral health of man- 
kind demands a clearing of the atmosphere, 
even though a storm may be the only means 
of clearing it. 

The author has not been betrayed into 
wholesale libel of humanity. He leaves that 
to the Calvinist. He believes that men are 
generally honest, that their notions are wont 
to be honest, even when most absurdly 
untrue. They are to be pitied and helped 
to a better thought, not berated as fools and 
hypocrites. They need culture, but culture 
requires complete destruction of the untrue, 
and gives a negative cast to the labors of 
almost all liberals. Every move forward 
involves iconoclasm. But we are constantly 
confronted with the question, "What do you 
give us in place of what you take away ?" 
We give but little, and are likely to give but 

VI 



PREFACE. 



little more. You have enough, good brother 
man, to guide you through all the lives you 
will ever have to live, if only you can be 
unfettered. You need nothing given you. 
You need rather have much taken away, 
much that encumbers you. You are a living 
thing, a bundle of instincts adapted more or 
less nearly to your environment by the long 
inheritance of the ages. These inborn in- 
stincts, guided by enlightened reason, are a 
thousandfold better guide to the high con- 
duct of your life than all the parchments and 
papyri of the past. 

The constructive or affirmative side of 
liberal thought can not be so distinctly 
religious, as that term is commonly under- 
stood, for most of what passes for religious, 
will not stand the test of clear thinking. 
But ethics, applied to public and private life, 
is re-enforced and made supreme. It may 
not be out of place to quote here the conclud- 
ing paragraphs of an article published by the 
author several years since : 

Man owes : 

" To the Universe, a willing submission 
to all laws, physical, mental, and moral, and 
an active, not merely passive, existence, 

" To himself, self-preservation, culture, 
happiness, and self-perpetuation. 

VII 



PREFACE. 



"To wife, chaste, exclusive love, personal 
liberty, and equal opportunities of life and 
development. 

"To children, pure healthy bodies and 
minds, proper care and development in 
infancy, fullest preparation for an entrance 
upon all the rights and privileges of mature 
life, and wise counsel in all things. 

"To fellow-men, unabridged rights to 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
and co-operation in securing mutual benefits. 

"To the State, good citizenship, active 
effort in forming and executing just and 
equal laws, and conformity to all laws until 
by reformatory education public thought 
shall alter them. 

**To the Past, a cherishing of all that is 
good in the social fabric, in philosophical, 
ethical, religious, political, and economic 
thought, and a rejection of all that is useless 
or evil. 

"To the Future, all the progress of 
which he is capable. He should bequeath 
more than the legacy of the Past. 

" To the race, everything. He owes self- 
culture, a full active life, a strong pure man- 
hood, and a broad, catholic spirit in all things, 
that he may be a factor in the evolution of a 
crowning order of life." 

VIII 



PREFACE. 



These constitute an ever-present au- 
thoritative code to the developed man. 

But what of Faith, Worship, Prayer.? 
Where have you placed these ? They are 
but attitudes of the human spirit toward the 
great Unknown, the Infinite, the Universe. 

And what of immortality } If there be 
no future of reward and retribution, what 
power will ethical law have over us ? "Eat, 
drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die !" 
This is but another form of the old question 
of sanctions. Belief in immortality has noth- 
ing necessarily to do with the moral acts of 
men. If there is a future state, it must be a 
complement to this state. A full complete 
earth-life must insure a fitting entrance upon 
the spirit-life. Our duties and opportunities 
all lie here. Our motives and sanctions are 
all here. If immortality is true, (and most 
of us believe it in some form) we will enter 
upon it prepared for all its opportunities and 
enjoyments. If it is but a beautiful dream of 
the ages, we shall go down to the dust, our 
bodies dissolving into the elements, our lives 
breathing out into nothing. We shall go to 
nothing dreadful. The mission of our life 
will be ended. 

This of course will not seem a fair 
return for taking away the creeds and some 

IX 



PREFACE. 



of the unfounded or too slightly founded 
hopes of certain men, but let them remember 
that this is not done in a spirit of robbery or 
wanton cruelty. Most liberals have been 
driven to their position by the force of unde- 
niable facts, reluctantly enough many times, 
but they have accepted the situation, with all 
its obloquy, with all the pains inflicted upon 
dearest friends, rather than stand before the 
world convicted of publicly fostering a sys- 
tem of thought which they privately believe 
false and pernicious. They are thoroughly 
honest, and leave to the pulpit the monopoly 
of indulging an advanced esoteric thought, 
yet teaching publicly a lower system adapted 
(forsooth) to less cultured minds. But mean- 
while population and learning both are 
increasing faster than the pews are filling. 
And no wonder ! 

Why can not the pulpit escape the bond- 
age of tradition, and resume its place in the 
van of human thought, a place usurped by 
the press, and now too often used in truck- 
ling to popular demands } 

It must stand for living thought, free 
inquiry, and cease maligning the honest 
worker and thinker. Until that time it must 
remain a decaying member of the social body, 
and become a menace and curse instead of 



PREFACE. 



a wholesome conservator and propagator of 
the best traditions of men. Let the church 
heed the many-voiced warnings of the last 
century. 

The title-poem of this volume was writ- 
ten under the inspiration of the lectures of 
Col. Robert G. IngersoU, and is offered as a 
tribute to him, whom many delight to recog- 
nize as the manly and eloquent friend of 
man, woman, and child, the champion of the 
oppressed, the titanic foe of superstition, the 
torch-bearer of intellectual liberty. 

The other poems are a humble contribu- 
tion to the cause for which the best blood 
has been spilled, in all ages, and for which 
obloquy and hissing are borne now. 



J. W. SCHOLL. 




XI 



*• The Light-Bearer of Liberty " is what it 
claims to be, — a tribute to the living. While these 
sheets are in the printer's hands, comes the sad 
news that the eloquent voice is silenced forever. 

This poem was written in August, 1898, A 
copy was forwarded with a personal letter to Col. 
Ingersoll, the September following. On October 
eleventh, the author received an autograph letter in 
response, which is now one of his choicest treasures. 

¥ W 

COPT OF LETTER FROM COL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL TO J. W. SCHOLL. 



WALSTON, DOBBS' FERRY-ON-HUDSON, 

Oct. 8, 1898. 
My Dear Mr. Scholl, 

I have read with the greatest delight your beautiful poem, — a 
poem that covers the whole ground, that has in it the very heart of 
history. 

I do not deserve a hundredth part of your generous praise, and yet 
with all my heart I thank you for thinking that I do. I have done but 
little, and yet my pride is that that little has been done for the liberty 
of men. To have gained such a friend as you are, is to succeed. 

Are you going to have the poem published? It is a great plea, 
a grand argument for freedom. Leaving all out regarding myself, the 
verses are wonderful, dramatic, filled with the real flame. 

Thanking you and congratulating you and with love to you and 
yours, 

I remain yours always, 

(Signed,) R. G. Ingersoll. 
XII 



Jl^e [\(^f)t-Bearer of Ijberty. 




TT TITAN with a torch in hand 

Is moving in the midst of men, 
And some are cursing the sharp glare 
Fecause their blind eyes cannot bear 
The splendor of its clear white light 
Athwart the dusks of ancient Night, 

And some — a censer-swinging band — 
Housed in their sacred robber's-den 
Loud rattle old Saint Peter's keys. 
Turn bellowing bulls loose from their sees 
To fright the timid from the rays 
That pierce their dark and hidden ways, 
I 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 

And some, who dare not understand 

The breadth and height of human ken, 
Clasp to their eyes a holy book 
And, thus defended, calmly look 
Upon the flaming torch, and swear 
There is no torch nor lightnings there. 



^ 



II. 

•^^HE Titan has a voice as clear 

As the light he bears in his strong 
right hand. 
An urgent voice that men must hear 
Or die unwept in a stagnant land. 

A voice of laughter for hours of mirth, 
A voice of tears for the time of grief, 

A voice of joy for the flowers of earth» 
A voice for every golden sheaf, 

2 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



A voice for every honest doubt, 
A voice for every manly trust, 

A voice of cheer when the soul is stout, 

A voice of praise when the deed is just. 

A voice of scorn for the outgrown creed, 
A voice of scathe for the hypocrite, 

A voice of help for human need. 

When souls in rayless dungeons sit. 

A voice for sculpture and painting and song 
A voice for the freedom of human 
thought, 
A voice for the conquest over wrong, 

A voice for the soul that was never 
bought. 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



A voice to parry the tyrant's blow, 
A voice to lift the victim up, 

A voice to smite the priesthood low, 

And dash from their hands the poisoned 
cup. 

A voice to set the bondmen free 

From chains of body and fetters of soul. 
A voice of battle and victory, 

A voice of striving to reach the goal. 

A voice of faith in the far event 

And the deathlessness of noble deeds. 

And hope whose iris-bow is bent 

O'er the path that ever onward leads. 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



f 



in. 

-T^HE earth hears the Voice, 
^^ And stands aghast ! 
O Earth, rejoice ! 
The Iconoclast 

Is clearing the ground 

For a Pantheon ! 
List ! Hear the sound ! 

How the work goes on ! 

There lies a god 

Broken in twain, 
Here a Holy Rood 

With its god's-blood stain. 

5 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



There a book with a seal, 
And a signet ring, 

Here the print of a heel 
On some holy thing. 

There a boot and a screw. 
And a strong-box rent, 

Here indulgences new 

To the four winds sent. 

There beads are strewn, 
And a book of prayer, 

Here an image unknown. 
And a surplice rare. 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



There the bones of a saint 
Tossed out in the mire, 

Here a rag with the taint 
Of martyrdom's fire. 

There an iron bed 

Is crushed at a blow, 
Here a bishop's head 

And a king's below. 

There the nails of a cross, 
And a shirt of Treves. 

O Earth ! what a loss ! 
For the Titan leaves 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



But the barren ground 
For a Pantheon ! 

List ! Hear the sound ! 

How the work goes on ! 






'^y 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Hi 



IV. 

^y ISE, true men, 
Build it again, 

Build it anew ! 
Out of the dust 
Build it more just, 

Build it more true ! 

Build it to last, 
Build it more vast, 

Grand as the soul ! 
Build without flaw. 
Base it on law, 

Perfect and whole ! 
9 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



» 



ZTIHAT does the Voice cry ? 
^^* There is no hell. 
There is no god of blight and blood, 
Of pestilence and fire and flood. 

No Adam fell. 
No child is damned. 

No chosen sect. 
No heaven crammed 

With God's elect. 

No miracle ! 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



No One in Three, 
No Three in One, 
No world undone ! 

Of mystery 
No priest or prophet ! 

No purchase-blood 
To save from Tophet ! 

No tithes of food 

God*s leeches to fee ! 
This is the Titan's cry. 



mn 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



K 



VI. 

'^^HE Voice cries out again : 
^"^ Strike the bonds from the limbs of men ! 
Strike the chains from the minds of men ! 
Strike the hate from the hearts of men ! 
Strike the lusts from the flesh of men ! 
Strike the lie from the lips of men ! 
Strike the creeds from the souls of men ! 
Let in the Light and the Love again ! 



12 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



VII. 

<> EST Goddess of a noble throng, 

*^ O Liberty, desired so long. 

Thy latest Torch-bearer we hail ! 

Long be it ere his strength shall fail ! 

Long may the Titan's stalwart hand 

Hurl thy swift lightnings through the land ! 

Long may the Titan's potent word 

In thine all-conquering cause be heard ! 

And when his lingering hour shall come, 

Lift thou the Light ! O be not dumb ! 

Sustain and cheer, uphold us yet, 

Lest we forget, lest we forget ! 



^''^ 



13 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



^ 



VIII. 

TTND must we wait till a great man dies, 
' And honor him with a pile of stone 

And a statue carved with a brave "here lies," 
To keep his fame and virtues known ? 

Such posthumous praise is too long deferred, 
When the dead fare well, where the liv- 
ing fared worse ! 

The man who speaks an immortal word 
Better beseems an immortal verse 

Flung out to the winds of the listening Earth, 
Or a living wreath for his living head. 

Take then this wreath ! It is little worth. 
But I would not wait till thou art dead. 
14 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



¥ 



IX. 

<> E still, proud bells ! 

Hush your dissonant clamors ! 

Stay your pendent hammers ! 
Be still, proud bells ! 

This fete is not for you 

High up in your gothic towers, 
A gala day for the few 

Who defy tyrannic powers. 

A sacrament day to me, 

With wine and wafers of love, 

For the Master abides with me 

And throbs through me with his love. 

IS 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



And the world has a hope today, 
And the burden is lifted quite, 

And the future stretches away 

O'erarched with a bow of light. 

Be still, proud bells ! 

If we mourned him dead, 
You would laugh over head ! 

Be still, proud bells ! 



i6 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



-O ING out, glad bells ! 

Swing your pendent hammers ! 

Loose your dissonant clamors ! 
Ring out, glad bells ! 

The joy of this day is for all, 

For you in your gothic towers, 

Ring out sweet Liberty's call. 

And startle the tyrant powers ! 

Leap up to the regions of light. 

Give it tongue and never cease, 

Leap out of your ghostly night. 

And utter his message of peace ! 
17 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY* 



For the best you know today, 

You owe to the stalwart hand 

That threw your idols away 

And tore faith's blinding band ! 

Ring out, glad bells ! 

If you knew him, when dead, 
You would sob overhead ! 

Ring out, sad bells ! 



#^ 



i8 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



XL 

^g^E Kings of the Earth, 
^ The Smiter's hand is at your thrones, 
An eagle-pinioned Age disowns 
Your right of birth ! 

Your first born prince 

May be but a worthless driveling fool, 
A hare-brained rake, or an easy tool 

Of intrigue or chance. 

And the heavens, methinks, 

Are tired of the red incessant flood, 
For strewn with gore and sodden with 
blood 
The whole earth stinks. 
19 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Because, forsooth, 

Two knaves of royal birth would reign, 
One knave and half his realm is slain 

With no more ruth 

Than a spider feels, 

When caught in his web with tangled 
wings 

A. swarm of blue-mailed insects clings 
In the knitted wheels, 

For common blood 

Is only fit to manure the ground, 

Or tempt the vultures to wheel around 

Their wonted food ! 



20 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Quail ! Kings of the Earth ! 

For the Smiter's hand is at your thrones 
And the eagle-pinioned Age disowns 

Your right of birth ! 

Hark ! Hear the cry ! 

Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood ! 

Risen from one baptism of blood 
Where thousands lie, 

They offer peace — 

An olive branch with a stain of blood — 
O take it, and spare the rich red flood 

That shall not cease 



21 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Till Earth is free, 

And every kingdom is overthrown, 
And crowns and scepters are bawbles 
grown 

For Democracy ! 

It comes ! It comes ! 

Let it be peace or let it be war ! 

Choose, ye Nations ! I hear it afar 
With trumpets and drums ! 

Ye Freemen, choose ! 

Surge, surge and emerge from royalty's 

ban. 
Try the loss of a king and the gain of 
man ! 
Ye cannot lose ! 



22 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Fall ! Kings of the Earth ! 

The Smiter's hand is at your thrones, 
And the eagle-pinioned Age disowns 

Your right of birth. 




23 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 

XII. 

^^E Deums sing, 
^^ Most noble King 

Of rich Brazil ! 
You left the throne, 
Now reigns alone 

The People's will ! 

Long sit serene 
Brittania's Queen, 

Hoar figure-head ! 
The day has dawned ! 
Your crown is pawned. 

Your office dead ! 

But Dies irae — 
Ordeals fiery — 

For a]l the others, 
Till the will of one 
Is a law to none 

And men are brothers ! 
24 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY 



18 



XIII. 

^^OME, O Woman, noble Queen, 
Crowning Masterpiece of Time, 
Evolution's work sublime, 

Choicest creature ever seen ! 

Crown your great Deliverer ! 

Bring the conqueror's meed of oak ! 

He your galling bondage broke. 
His the mightiest thunders were. 

You were slaves of slaves at first — 

Old Saint Paul had made you so — 
Abject, suffering, full of woe — 

Saints despised you, Jahveh cursed — 
25 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Silent, serving tyrant man, 

Doll or mistress, chattel, ward, 
Man your lord as Christ his lord, 

Blot on fair creation's plan ! 

Necessary evils, you ! 

How could man be born, in truth ? 

Man, creation's lord, forsooth ! 
Any ape, meseems, would do ! 

So your wings were early clipped, 

Bearing children half your sphere, 
Other half a husband's fear, 

Love-buds frosty curses nipped. 



26 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Priests were slaves to self-made ghosts, 
Men were slaves to wily priests, 
Women slaves to both the beasts, 

So it pleased the Lord of Hosts ! 

So it stands in holy writ, — 

Holy bugbear for the race ; — 
Woman meekly took her place. 

And the ages hallowed it. 

Rise, O Woman, noble Queen, 

Crowning Masterpiece of Time, 
Evolution's work sublime. 

Choicest creature ever seen ! 



27 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Voices came from out the deeps, 

Thoughts that battled hard and long, 
Manacled by priestly wrong ; 

Freedom burst her donjon-keeps ; 

Skulls grew larger, senses finer, 
Justice snatched the balances, 
Love climbed up through swift degrees, 

Human life became diviner ; 

Ghosts and priests have slowly sunk, 
Men and women slowly climb, 
Woman yet shall rise sublime, 

Ghosts be lower than a monk ! 



THE LIGHT-BEAKER OF LIBERTY. 



She shall own her intellect, 

Own her head and heart and hand, 
Every door shall open stand 

Wheresoe'er her brain elect ! 

She shall own her flesh and blood. 

Marriage vows shall make no slaves. 

Legal vice shall dig no graves 
For polluted motherhood ! 

And the Man shall honors do, 

Girdle her with service sweet. 
Find his heaven at her feet, 

Noble, generous, manly, true ! 



29 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Come, O Woman, noble Queen, 

Crowning Masterpiece of Time, 
Evolution's work sublime, 

Choicest creature ever seen ! 

Crown your strong Deliverer ! 

Bring the civic wreath of oak ! 

Hail, O Lifter of the yoke ! 
Hail, O mighty Thunderer ! 



wm 



30 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



f 



XIV. 

"I^IMPLED babies, pink and white, — 
^^^ Heaven's own embodied light, — 
Lent for balm to mortal sight ! 

Who would dare to look within 
Souls like yours, to heaven akin, 
Swearing they are stuffed with sin ? 

Lips that touched a mother's breast, 
Hands that mothers' hands have pressed, 
Cheeks that mothers' cheeks caressed, 

Need no priestly rites baptismal, 
Need no shelter from the abysmal 
Gulf of Hades dark and dismal. 
31 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Were you, priests, but half so pure. 
Though the earth should not endure, 
You might hope to sit secure ! 

Gooing babies, helpless pygmies. 
Who shall solve your Fate's enigmas ? 
Who shall save you from Earth's stigmas ? 

Who shall keep your bodies sweet ? 

Who shall guide uncertain feet ? 

Who shall choose when pathways meet ? 

Who shall wield the potent charm 
Timely wise to sound the alarm 
To forefend approaching harm ? 



32 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Who unveil to questioning eyes 
All the shadowy world that lies 
Back of life's realities ? 

Who shall lift Deception's masks ? 
Fathers, mothers, these your tasks ! 
Higher, nobler, no one asks ! 

Unconsulted little wights, 
Subject to ten thousand slights. 
You have most undoubted rights, 

Right to birth by choice, not chance, 
Full fruition, slow advance, 
Taintless flesh, intelligence. 



33 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Perfect function, faultless form, 

Appetite and senses warm, 

Sex and love for passion's storm. 

Who would bring you into light 

Out of Being's primal night 

And make void one single right, . 

Should be cursed with childlessness. 
Never know Love's sweet embrace, 
Never feel a child's caress ! 

Irresponsible for being, 

Not dissenting nor agreeing, 

Neither seeking life nor fleeing, 



34 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Fated as the scattered wheat 
Basking in autumnal heat 
Underneath the sower's feet, 

Flowers of sweet humanity, 
Shall the promised harvest be 
Absolutest property ? 

Shall the father own the soul ? 
Play the slaver's hated role ? 
Body, brain and life control ? 

Muse of Liberty, protest ! 

Do sweet childhood's one behest 

Till its wrongs are all redressed ! 



35 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Dimpled babies, pink and white, — 
Heaven's own embodied light, — 
Lent for balm to mortal sight ! 

Hopes that shine like radiant stars, 
Loves indrifting across the bars, — 
Soul's incessant avatars ! 

Leaders of each new crusade 
'Gainst the realms of darkness made, 
We will send you willing aid ! 

We, the elders, see the light. 
Breaking at the close of night, 
You are standing in the white 

Radiance of a fairer dawn ! 
Shout " God speed !" and cheer them on, 
Till the night is wholly gone ! 
36 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



» 



XV, 

TT CRY of Humanity : 

O voice of a thousand streams unpent, 
Down leaping from rock to rock dashing to 

spray ! 
O roar of tempest and wrestle of mighty 

whirlwind, 
Unrestrained and mad, yet not lawless ! 
O types of true men, mighty, unfettered ! 
Cry and utter adown the blast : 
lo pasan ! An endless shout. 
Blast of trumpets and lusty throats ! 
Hosanna ! and Gloria in excelsis ! 
Honor and laud for the mighty rescue ! 



37 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



The new blood surges in fetterless limbs, 
The new blood surges in quivering brains, 
And thoughts flash out like sparks from an 

anvil ! 
The whole world is kindling. 
A new aeon is born, and the new Phoenix 

arises 
From cold ashes of slavish death 
And sweeps on majestic wing toward the 

flaming East ! 
Gather, O mighty men, and behold ! 
O magnificent mothers, and gaze on it ! 
And your children shall shine and burn with 

the flame of it, 
And the great Law shall be written no more 

in books, 
Nor be graven on stone. 
But the brain and heart shall be law enough, 
And even young blood shall be law enough i 

38 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



Not by fear shall the Right bear rule, 
But by love, and he that loves best 

Shall be the Exemplar and bear the scepter. 

Yet he shall not bear rule ! 

Each man shall be king of himself ! 

Each woman queen of herself ! 

Each child the lord of itself, reverend, 

Reverenced above the Kings and Queens of 
the Earth, 

For the child-soul is the budding of a mil- 
lion generations. 

And grander by implication of a million new 
generations, 

The harvest and seeding at once of the 
infinite Past and the Future ! 

Shout aloud! Let joy be unbounded as 
life is unbounded ! 

The new Order be a monument to him 

And to every Titan that broke a bond 

Or struck a blow for the rescue ! 
39 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



XVI. 

^^PIRITS, goblins, gods and ghosts, 

Marshall your aerial hosts, 
Spread your gauze or leathern wings 
And descend in narrowing rings ! 

Squeak or gibber, shriek or thunder, 
Cleave the cloudless sky asunder, 
Show your forms to mortal sight, 
Wheel around us and alight ! 

Silence ! What ? Ye will not come ? 
Earth is speechless ! Heaven dumb ! 
Gods and ghosts and goblins gone. 
Frightened from the glowing dawn ! 



0^ 



40 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



^ 



XVII. 

7TWHAT is the end and meaning of a life ? 

Is it to feel the tides of spirit surge 
Through every fiber of the heart and brain 
And seal the lips forever ? To know a truth 
And choke and smother it within the soul, 
Lest the quick eye and tell-tale earnest face 
Should half reveal it to a struggling brother ? 
O agony of silence ! Must it be 
That, standing in the surging throngs of men 
Whose dullard senses feel nor see nor hear 
The world that lies within them and above, 



41 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



My tongue is silent ? Must I feel and see 
The shame and degradation of a world 
And hear the clanking chains that shackle 

thought, 
And yet not speak ? Nay, I will speak, jnust 

speak, 
Though I should stand alone and scorned of 

men, 
For, in full consecration to my task, 
I'd rather be called infidel by man 
Than live unfaithful to my highest thought ! 



I 



■^.^ 



42 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



XVIII. 

'J^ITANIC Herald of the whitening dawn, 
Maligned and hated, cursed, misunder- 
stood, 
Yet dreaded by the Night's misgotten 
brood, — 
Tithe-mongering hypocrites that lick and 

fawn 
The hand of power, but rudely trample on 
The helpless weakling and despoil his 

good, 
And shoddy saints with villainy indued 
In purple robes, and Superstition's spawn 
That fill the cushioned pews and take their 

ease 
While reverend Dulness drones the liturgies, 
Or bustling Mediocrity displays 
The curious gleanings of his college days ! — 
The heathen rage, but thou art still serene, 
Olympian, gazing on the troubled scene. 
43 



THE LIGHT-BEARER OF LIBERTY. 



But here and there a soul is kindled new 

With fire asbestous^ and all human creeds 

And schemes born of imperious human 

needs 

Are tested in the crucible anew, 

The false burnt out, and radiant left the true. 

His constant fire the cunning chemist 

feeds 
And fans to flame the smouldering fur- 
nace gleeds, 
Till all is tested or Life's day is through ! 
These build Earth's consecrated Brother- 
hood, 
Sworn foes of evil, friends of every good. 
Thou, Titan, art the clear white light of it. 
Long years among us deign, revered, to sit, 
And we will wreathe an amaranthine crown 
To match the deathlessness of thy renown ! 



44 



Jl?e Spectral l/isitapt. 

¥ looked up from the mighty book. 

My hands with toil-worn palsy shook, 
And sight my sleepless orbs forsook, 



Or seemed a moment to forsake. 
Then out of darkness seemed to make 
A specter that all hues would take, — 

A form inconstant as a dream's, 

Shot through and through with living 

beams, — 
A tissue strange of dusks and gleams. 

And then with preternatural sight 
I saw — O vision of affright ! — 
Myself, that hollow ghost of Night ! 
45 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



And in its haggard lineaments read 
The marble lips of one long dead 
That moved as if they something said. 

I heard within my midnight room 

A sigh as when a sense of doom 

Strikes through grim Death's abysmal gloom, 

And two cold eyes abashed my own. 

I shivered and I felt alone 

With hope and courage well-nigh gone, 

Whereat the lips of spectral mould 
Made bold to taunt me ; "Thou art old ! 
Thy blood with sleepless toil grows cold ! 



46 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Consider well thy little span — 

How swift thy youthful decades ran — 

How swifter flies the age of man ! 

There is no harvest in the years, 
But ever seed-time full of tears 
Beguiled by hope that harvest nears ! '* 

He saw my eyes with misery fill, 
Whereat he smote with bolder skill, 
With purpose to dethrone my will ; 

" O earthy Earth, that wert not meant 
To conquer the environment 
That Mother Nature kindly lent. 



47 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



'Tis but a fever of the blood 

That tells thee of unconquered good 

Beyond thy fated humanhood ! 

Were it not best to sit content 

Within thy humble element, 

Nor strive for dubious betterment ?" 

Whereat I rallied and replied ; 

" Who said that Hope had ever lied ? 

For Time is long, the World is wide !" 

A cold smile beamed across his face ; 
**Art thou coaeval with the race ? 
Or fillest but some sorry space 



48 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Of three score years and ten, or less, 
With long-complaining weariness, * 

Scarce heard amid Earth's storm and stress ? 

Is Earth a furlong wide to thee 
Who never traversed land or sea, 
Save in this musty library ?" 

I dared not answer what I meant, 
Lest Hope's best shafts as idly spent 
Leave me devoid of armament. 

Taking my silence for defeat, 

He bent his questioning orbs to meet 

The great book fallen at my feet. 



49 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



I said : "The Masters lived and wrought, 
They moulded worlds to fit their thought, 
By them the great Soul must be taught." 

"And if he try his hand untaught, 
What frightful wrongs are oft inwrought 
In every deed," he said ; "and thought ! 

And if he wait till all is learned. 
And Life's dim lamp is wholly burned, 
What is the fruit his toil has earned ? 

Hast thou the genial medium found 
Where thoughts and deeds alike abound, 
Where thoughts and deeds alike are sound ? 



so 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Confess, poor Toiler on the shore 
Of ancient wreckage, that thy lore 
Is less than theirs who went before ! 

And yet beyond a vague perchance, 
Thou wilt the Scholar's toil enhance, 
Thy books impeding all advance !" 

Before my startled eyes he stept. 

To where my garnered treasures slepped, 

And clutched my precious manuscript, 

And, with a mocking glance, elate, 

Tossed it into the blazing grate, 

My heart's blood froze, — grown cold of late,- 



5» 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



To see the pages smoke and curl, 

And flamelets dance and leap and whirl, 

I thought of each Rialto pearl 

There garnered, worth a kingdom's price. 
Destroyed like kingdoms in a trice. 
When coldly questioned that hard voice ; 

"Will any frugal meal taste worse. 
Or any dawn grow dark with curse 
For wanting of thy lost discourse ? 

And see, thou hast a sprightlier fire 
To flicker like thy heart's desire 
A moment, and with it expire ! " 



52 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



I could not speak but only weep 

To watch the flame-tongues slowly creep, 

When from its dead lethargic sleep 

My soul awoke and whispered near : 
" O heavy Heart, be of good cheer, 
Thy pearls and gold are garnered here ! 

Thou art the sum of three score years, 
The ripened fruit of toil and tears, 
Thyself the harvest of whitened ears ! " 

Whereat I felt a kindly hope 
Dawn swiftly up the Eastern slope 
And gleam beyond the heavens' cope. 



S3 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Which swift divining from my face, 
Wherein no tear had left its trace 
The Soul's clear morning to deface ; 

" No seed of all that harvest sown, 

It profits little to have grown," 

He said : " when thou and thine art gone. 

What comfort is it now to thee 
The sum of three score years to be, 
Yet not of Time's infinity ? 

Thou hast but garnered a few seeds, 
Immixed with chaff and noxious weeds, 
Fit only for the furnace gleeds, 



54 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Which each has garnered in his turn, 
And others many yet shall learn 
To boast, ere they to dust return. 

But in the cycle of the years, 

Is there a gain to match their tears, 

Or circle all in like careers } 

What boots it to be learned, and die ? 
The unlettered laughs as merrily, 
And both at length shall equal lie. 

What books it to be rich and great .? 
The plowman on thy broad estate. 
Gets sunshine at as cheap a rate. 



55 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Wilt thou grow overbold by hopes 
That seem to dawn on golden slopes ? 
Thy face betrays how thy heart gropes, 

And new springs of unbidden tears 
But show how desert are thy years, 
Thou puny last of many peers ! 

Surely 'twere best to sit content 

Within thy humble element 

Nor strive for dubious betterment !" 

At length, my sorrows partly spent, 
A little cry of hope found vent 
That to my spirit courage lent ; 



56 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



** Each age grows better than the last, 
The Present richer than the Past, 
By Futures still to be surpassed ! " 

" How wilt thou prove it ? " spake the ghost; 
" The Past is gone, and wholly lost. 
And all thou knowest is, at most, 

What men have dreamed the Past should be 
And built with various phantasy 
Out of the wrecks of History ! 

The Future is an unseen bourn 

That fond hearts call the Land of Morn 

Where all millenniums are born. 



57 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Each Age is different, 'tis true, 
By growing into something new, 
Whereof the earlier dreamed nor knew, 

But every gain has recompense 
By equal loss of parts or sense 
Grown useless in Time's consequence ; 

And even progress is but change 

To undreamed somethings wild or strange, 

But never unto wider range ! 

But thou, list to the endless wail 
Of Sorrow, brooding o'er each vale ! 
See Care sit silent, deadly pale, 



S8 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Half-dreaming of Saturnian reigns, 
And Edens lost, that none regains ! 
What say to thee these endless threnes ? 

Do they not mock thy golden dreams 
And clip the Future of his beams ?" 
The firelight fell, and dimmed its gleams. 

The shriveled parchment in the grate 
Lay black and dead, and I, of late 
So strong, felt all my strength abate, 

As if the fires of Life had burned 
Till all my soul to cinders turned. 
But inward heat all undiscerned 



59 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Leaped forth to flame. *'Grim ghost !" I said : 
^'Though beaten back, I am not dead, 
Against thee shall my soul make head ! 

For man at least sometimes is meant 

To overleap environment 

And send a thrill of glad content 

Through all the old world's dullard nerves ! 
The great Soul comes, the old world swerves 
And leaps in new and undreamed curves ! 

Is it not worth some strife to be 
A Soul of such compelling, free, 
Exerting world-wide potency ?'* 



60 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



" If true, small comfort, seems to me ! 
Oh! Ay ! " he said so mockingly ; 
"Thou art that Soul of potency? 

Once in a century is born 

A great Soul flashing like the morn 

From out the Void's unmeasured bourn, 

But myriads, while that age flits by, 
Leap into life with one faint cry. 
Creep out of life with one faint sigh. 

And round life's dull monotony 
With so much toil and penury, 
And so much care and misery. 



6i 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



What boots it if great souls are sent 
Across a fair world's firmament, 
If thou art wretched, uncontent, 

Among the myriads that were meant 
To yield to stern environment 
That Mother Earth so kindly lent? 

Besides, no Soul heroic drew 
From husks of books the living dew. 
But shared fair Nature as she grew!" 

" Though hard, O Spectral Visitant, 
Thy words, and of soft soothing scant, 
Thou hast thyself Ihe weapon lent 



62 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Wherewith I conquer," thus I said ; 
" I close these books that seem so dead, 
I choose the Living Book instead ! " 

To which repHed the mocking Voice ; 
" I wish thee joy of thy new choice ! 
How must thy shriveled soul rejoice, 

To count the petals of the rose, 

To note the wind that, veering, blows, 

To mark the dawn that roseate glows. 

To dig huge fossils, dip the seas. 
Out-quarry mountains, fell great trees. 
Or watch in curious towers, at ease. 



63 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



The planets in their orbits swing, 
Or, lighting on some nearer thing, 
Note how the hived bees lose their sting, 

Or how the busy ants entwine 
Their deft antennae long and fine. 
And talk like humans infantine. 

The task were scarce a thousandth done 

When one poor mortal life is run! 

Thou hadst, perchance, some respite won 

From moldering care and misery, 
But all thy learning dies with thee! 
What profits that to thee or me?" 



64 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



He said. I answered cheerily; 
" Is respite won from misery 
So little worth to thee and me ? " 

'* And death is respite equally ! 
Does this make hemlock taste to thee 
Like nectar ? " answered sneeringly 

The Voice. And all my members shook 
With palsy, at his darkened look, 
And warmth my pallid cheeks forsook. 

He raised aloft in his right hand, 
As light as fairy lifts her wand, 
A gleaming two-edged battle-brand, 



65 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



And Azrael grew his form apace. 
I shrunk, and fell upon my face, 
And prayed him for a little space ; 

Whereat he laughed : '*A little life, 
Though old and sere and full of strife, 
Is sweeter than this spectral knife 

That would bring respite? Man, arise, 
Confess that striving toward the skies. 
Is cause of all thy miseries! " 

A voice within refused assent, 

I would not rot in ease, content 

To take what gifts the earth-gods sent, 



66 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



But, humbled, I arose and stood. 
And questioned every human good, 
To find the crown of humanhood. 

Long balancing with bated breath, 
The nice accounts of Life and Death, 
I held with him who nobly saith. 

That Life is ever lord of Death. 

I chose wild pulse-beats, panting breath, 

And stirrings of the inward wraith 

That makes a tumult in the veins. 
And feels the worth of joys and pains, 
And lords it over dust, and reigns, 



^1 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Albeit for a sorry space! 

At length, I lifted up my face, 

As one who overlives disgrace, 

And said : ** Death's respite is decay, 

But Life's rest is the subtle play 

Of nerves that feel the touch of May." 

*' The dead feel naught. The living feel. 
I lately saw thee, stricken, kneel. 
And cold white lids with thy lips seal, 

And thine own lids deep purple grew. 
And grief rained through them bitter dew, 
Who suffered most, the dead or you ? " 



68 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



He smote me with a grief so near, 
So dear, I could not choose but hear: 
I saw again her pall and bier — 

The funeral pomp of coach and hearse 
I saw the black train slow disperse, 
And I was left alone, to nurse 

The wound of Azrael's fatal knife, 
For she that was the life of life — 
My lily bride, now sainted wife, — 

Had withered. Ere I spake, he said : 
** I saw thee clinging to the dead, 
I saw thee pillow her cold head 



69 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Upon thy breast, I saw thee lay 
Thy hand upon her hands, and pray 
That Death might snatch ye both away, 

Nor leave one back to pine and weep, 
And love's sad vigils vainly keep ! 
Hast thou forgotten that sweet sleep ? " 

I answered slow with stifled breath : 
" I prayed, but not alone for death, 
I prayed in anguish-wakened faith 

That death is but the open door 
That leads to life forevermore 
With her upon some fairer shore." 



70 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



"A cheat," he answered ; "who can tell? 
Perchance it is for mortals well 
That faith and hope have such a spell 

To rob the grave of half its sting! 
But why not at a single spring, 
Make proof of an uncertain thing? 

Here's hemlock, here's distilled blood 

Of slumberous poppies, that have stood, 

A gloomy Stygian sisterhood. 

Drink, and make proof of the unseen! 

Thou art a scientist, I ween, 

And many a curious thing hast seen, 



71 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



But one thou hast not, it is Death. 
O'erleap the chasm! Prove thy faith, 
If it be truly what it saith ! 

Clasp thy loved Mrife within thine arms ! 
Ha ! Faith is weak ! Immortal charms 
Woo not thy soul from Earth's alarms ! 

Thou hast no mighty faith to hold 
Thy sinking spirits from the cold 
Dark dread of rotting into mold ! 

Cheat not thyself and me with words. 
Faith's idle blandishment affords 
No lasting comfort, nor accords 



72 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



The grave one luring attribute ! 
Speak not of life beyond ! Be mute 
Till man is somewhat more than brute ! 

If life have some excuse to be, 
'Tis here thou findest it, for see, 
Thy last gasp is the end of thee !" 

Not wholly robbed of faith, I cried : 
" I cannot know what may betide, 
When life drifts to the other side ; 

I only know that Love dreams on, 
And clasps the spirit that is gone. 
I cannot doubt the morrow's dawn, 



73 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Though life's dark night had not a star; 
But waiving faith that dreams afar 
Beyond Earth's latest sunset bar, 

I'll meet thee in thy chosen list, 
And crush thee, gloomy agonist, 
Though that best armor I have missed: 



If Death were lord of Life instead. 
This Earth were wholly dark and dead, 
A huge, wild, granite earthquake-bed, 

Storm-beaten, ocean-lashed, and bare. 

With arid zones of parching air, 

And ice-fields in the moon's cold glare. 



H 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



With ne'er a leaf, and ne'er a wing, 
To mark the dawning of the spring, 
And fill green woods with twittering ! " 

"Ay ! Life is destined, if you will, 

But may be either good or ill," 

He urged. I answered warmlier still, 

The hot blood beating in my breast : 
" Of good or ill, what is the test? 
Is pleasure evermore the best? 

To be at-one with the world's life, 
A-striving with the general strife. 
Though every hour with pain were rife. 



75 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Is best ! I dare not break the vase 
God fashioned with such subtle grace, 
Till he remove it from its place. 

My answer, Ghost, is not complete 
With logic, but each strong pulse-beat 
Of dawning life makes thee retreat, 

And though my lips were wholly dumb. 
Though nerves and brain were cold and numb. 
An answer from the heart would come ! " 

" Live on and suffer ! I have done. 
The heart by logic ne*er was won. 
Hug life as when it first begun. 



76 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



But cease from striving, iearn to drift 

As life's low surges sink and lift, 

As time's light breezes change and shift ! 

He said. " Not thus I bid adieu ! 
The Heart's still voice is not less true 
Than logic's ergo. Hear me through ! 

Instinct is more than knowledge still, 
And feeling is the birth of will : 
I'll reck its rede through good or ill. 

It whispers 'till my pulses dance ; 
Life is not dullard sufferance, 
But daily struggling to advance. 



77 



THE SPECTRAL VISITANT. 



Life and more life it seems to me 

The whole world sings. The symphony 

Dispels my self-wrought misery. 

Strife and more strife, it seems to sing, 

For life is striving, Everything, 

By striving, bursts to leaf and wing ! " 

Athwart my windows beat the dawn. 
I saw her foot-prints on the lawn, — 
My Spectral Visitant was gone ! 




78 



Jesus of flazaretl?. 

'I'^HOU Warder of forgotten histories, 

Oblivion, bring forth thy hidden scrolls* 
Restore to Memory thy treasured lore. 
The record of his birth and life and death. 
Else shall we miss the golden grains of truth 
While winnowing the chaff of fables vain. 
Ye crude Evangels, told from lip to lip, 
Repeated oft by ignorant peasantry 
Who lifted marvel into miracle 
Till crystallized into Grecian rolls 
Obscure, — a century's gathered wreck and 

drift,— 
Though full of error, yet with nascent faith 
Illumed, creep from monastic dust and death, 
Proclaim your faithlessness, and undeceive 
The myriads that rest their faith in myth 
Rather than trust the great strong soul of manl 
79 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Ye hills by pilgrims of the mighty West 
Long sought, restore the impress of his feet 
That we may thread his mazed ministries, 
Nor heed the tales of credulous fabulists 
Or fond traditions of evangelists ! 
Call from sepulchral dust the multitudes 
That followed the great Thaumaturge's steps, 
Content to eat his bread and drink his wine 
For the small pain of hearkening his words ! 
Call forth the lazar throngs, the halt, the blind, 
The congregate deformities of Earth, — 
Whose misereres sought him in the fields 
And by the gates, and thronged porticoes 
Of synagogues and temples, — careless all 
For piety, if but their ills were cured ! 
Restore his world, that flagging human faith 
Be tasked no farther with those marvels old 
Than with the spirit of our own vast age 
Where sense and reason — wonted guides — 
are hers ! 

80 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Might we but share his serving, we would list 
His words and wonders with the toil-worn 

Twelve, 
Now tarrying at Cana's nuptial feast, 
And now by Sychar's ancient well athirst 
Where he for one cool draught of that deep 

font 
Gave her that drew it, — though of hated 

race, — 
The priceless draught of living water, Hope ; 
Now wandering by fair Genessarett, — 
His refuge from the Doctors' murderous 

hate 
When thrust with menace from the syna- 
gogue,— 
Or plucking ears from the white harvest 

fields 
Amid the taunts of Sabbatarian priests 
Whose Pharisaic pride loved much to boast 
Of righteous zeal for the Mosaic texts ; 
8i 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Now entering the temple — newly purged 
Of sacrificial markets — where he taught 
Unwelcome truth, — by men called heresy 
When winged first from some high search- 
ing mind, — 
Defying openly the hierarchs, 
But winning empire with the weak oppressed : 
Now seeking peace in far Zidonia 
From priestly machinations born of hate. 
Then turning back to his unfinished task 
That grew to tragedy with each swift day. 
From olive-branched triumph and acclaim. 
Through dark Gethsemane and broken faith, 
To the great consummation, guiltless death! 

And thus sojourning long, O Paraklete, 
O spirit of mighty Manhood, thou Unknown, 
From whom our loftiest aims and hopes are 

drawn, 
To whom we stretch our thought-creating 
souls, 

82 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



When yearning for ideal Grace and Truth, 
We fain would beg of thee — nor beg in vain — 
A mind to apprehend his manly mind, 
A soul to apprehend his passionate soul, 
To know and feel what he must know 

and feel 
Amid the halt and blind and ignorant 
And blinder guilds of death and cults of sin I 

Oh for one impulse of divinest love 
To deify one instant of this life 
And lift our dullard souls to newer heights ! 
Or, if thy gifts, denied to meaner souls. 
Are only won by asking lavishly. 
Grant us ecstatic days of deity 
And whole triumphant years of perfectness ! 

Three years of such a life, though scorned 
of men 
And shut within the bounds of one weak state, 
Today could pierce the bubble of the creeds, 
And drive the daily lie from pious lips, 
83 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



And strike the chains from man's all-con- 
quering mind 
Till life and love and truth were all in all, 
And forward through the ages urge the tide 
Of larger manhood till the frailest child 
Of toil and sorrow should excel the gods 
That our poor thoughts have fashioned and 

enshrined. 
Then marvel not that Judah's carpenter 
So builded in the souls of lesser men 
That twice ten centuries called him very God. 
Yet was he man, and son of man, nor 
dared 
In all his royal vision overstep 
His heritage of mortal flesh or claim 
One item of pure deity. He felt 
As man must feel, in life's strait circum- 
stance 
Of daily need and toil and toil's reward 
With pain secured. He knew temptation's lure 
84 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Disguised as gilded good, and virtue's bane 
To be misunderstood, and bitter grief, 
And over all compassion and strong faith. 
No God with heaven-descended vital thought 
Could reach the human soul through sympa- 
thies 
As he, the Man among co-equal men. 
Living their life and teaching them to live 
With daily reverence for the highest Good 
And daily struggles for the Perfectness. 

And if at times in mystic mood he chose 
The loftier title, Son of God, he claimed 
But loftier right, for he was son of God 
By right of manhood's dignity and height, 
Not deity by unigeniture 
Of Infinite God, with whom can be no need 
Of geniture — Mortality's fair gift 
For conquering death, in bearing newer forms 
In endless swift succession, and, in joy. 
Snatching immortal life from out the dust ; — 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Nor with ambitious majesty and pride 
He chose exalted names, but that all men 
Through living blameless in the strength of 

truth 
And virtue, faithful through extremest woe, 
Might share his heritage and dignities, 
All sons of God, all equal, and none Lord. 

He was a mystic and enthusiast 
Whose words, if misinterpreted, could make 
A bigot's iron creed and stifle thought 
By chaining reason, or could nourish fat 
The dreaded monsters of fanatic zeal 
And self-complacent jesulatria; 
Whose life, if emulated, would reread 
His words in generous faith and comprehend 
The vital truth within the letter's death. 

He was unlettered in an age unlearned. 

He never weighed the sun with curious zeal. 

Nor traced the planets in their mighty orbs 

Disclosing secrets with the prism and lens, 

86 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Nor read the message of the buried rocks 

In relics of archaic life exhumed, 

Nor sought the gelid seas for either pole 

Or routes to India or far Cathay, 

Nor pierced the tropic jungles hot and dank, 

For unknown forms of insect, bird and beast; 

Nor climbed the mountains to their snowy 

crests 
To pluck rare plants from out their frozen 

home, 
Nor, housed within commodious academes. 
Traced geometric angles, points and curves, 
Or played with numbers or with foreign 

tongues. 
Careless to tread through all the curious maze 
That men must pass to knowledge. He but 

sought 
Essential knowledge which is knowing Self, 
Nor needed letters for the Father's task ; 
For whoso, sentient-souled, by inward search, 
87 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Attends its passions and perpetual dreams, 
In solitude and in society, 
In lowliest circumstance of poverty 
O'er-roofed with rudest thatch or roofless all. 
In highest station and luxurious ease 
Immured in palaces on stable thrones, 
Hath largest wisdom though unlettered still, 
Andofttimes largest knowledge deigns to 

dwell 
With open minds that read, not scrolls, but 

men. 
Well might he say that greatest truths are hid 
From bookish saintliness but shown to babes. 

And, knowing Self, he knew the dignity 
Of Soul, and loved it wheresoe'er it dwelt, 
With more of honor where it sat enthroned 
And swayed a regal scepter o'er the man, 
With more of pity where it pined for life 
Amid the ruins of its fallen fanes, — 
Imbruted man, — man's worst antithesis. 
8S 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



He loved, nor can the fabled burning heart 
Tell how he loved. No household loves 

were his 
To weave Arachne's webs about his feet 
And take him in the snare of prattling 

tongues 
And childish sweet embracings. No caress 
Dearer than Mary's earliest kiss he knew, 
Forsaking lesser for the larger love, 
Not as in scorn of woman's loveliness. 
Not in ascetic fear to touch her lips 
As if with serpent's venom overspread. 
Rut, consecrated to a martyr's task 
Thi ee summers long, ease and soft nuptial joys 
Though pure as Heaven or the thoughts of 

God, 
Less charmed him than the road to Golgotha. 
But woman's priceless love was not withheld. 
Behold her sitting at his feet, devout, 
Or low, anointing them with spikenard rare. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



He loved, and Love allied with Truth is 

power. 
And thus he spake the mightiest burning 

words — 
Words winged like seraphs with beatitudes, 
But each beatitude the recompense 
Of highest living — Life's supremest good. 
From that thalassian mountain-side obscure, 
Where the astonished multitude sat down. 
Hearken the echo of the sweetest words 
That through the ages fell on human ear. 
And, in their Benedictus, lose thyself 
To find a selfhood incorrupt and high 
Whose every throb may say to thy strong 

soul ; 
"Blessed, thrice blessed, art thou, son of 

God ! " 
No human heart that beats has grown so 

weak. 
No human soul that feels is sunk so low, 
90 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



But may with hope sublime and during faith 
Prove worthy sonship with the living God. 
" Love God, Love man ! " This was his 

message clear. 
What more he taught is but particular. 
For this he suffered. Can the Roman 
cross 
With all its imagery of agony 
Tell how he suffered > His too sensitive heart 
That wept for Salem in her desolate walls 
As for a friend departed, that moaned out 
Its anguish at the tomb of love, that sank 
Crushed to Gethsemane's lone midnight earth 
With passion heavier than death, betrayed 
By one he trusted, O to wear the purple 
And crown acanthus and be struck with hands 
And mocked with taunting words and spit 

upon ! 
What need of Roman arms to break such 

hearts } 

91 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Betrayal deadlier than Roman arms 
Extinguished in foul marks of guilt and shame 
The sweetest human life of all that age, 
Its task half finished or yet unconceived. 
And yet, to die and leave the unfinished 

scheme 
To men who fled from Roman spears a-nd 

staves. 
Was easier than to yield convictions strong. 
He chose to die, Truth's protomartyr grand, 
Loved, hated, wept for, cursed, but ne'er 

forgot. 
He died, and loving hands pressed down 
those lids 
To hide the lusterless dead eyes that once 
Beamed love divinely sweet ; strong, faithful 

arms 
Bore the deep wounded corse from the dread 

cross, 
And laid it gently in its sepulcher ; 
92 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



And when the stone that sealed its narrow cell 
Closed o'er his dust, Despair and Anguish 

cried ; 
" Never ! Never ! Never ! " Even Hope, 

the while, 
Her song of immortality forgot. 
And Faith forgot that God is over all. 
A generation died, and with it died 
The comrades of his toils and thoughts and 

loves. 
Alone survived the legends of his life. 
Grown as the legend grows in human mouths 
That glorify by myth and wondrous tale 
Those whose broad minds, sweet souls and 

simple loves 
Uptower above the level of their age — 
The Thaumaturges — the Misunderstood — 
The Deified, because misunderstood ! 
What Hero was of human mould ? For lo ! 
A virgin sweet immaculate, whom God 
93 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Impregned, hath born a God. So runs the 

tale. 
He lives and dies a God. The sepulcher 
Despite rock-ribbed eternal silences 
Bursts open at his touch divine. Behold 
" Surrexit " graven deep on every tomb 
Of hero dust ! The Empyrean courts, 
By right divine, are his. And circling clouds — 
A gorgeous chariot — bear him to his throne. 

Pause, blind enthusiast ! on mortal man, 
On vital dust heap not mistaken praise ! 
Is truth incredible from human lips } 
Is man so sunk that gods alone can live 
Exalted lives and die heroic deaths ? 
Can apotheoses exalt the soul 
That death between the thieves could never 

shame ? 
Thank God devoutly this was but a man 
And what once man hath done man yet can do! 
Take noble courage from a simple life 
94 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Beset with hatred, yet grown rich in love. 
Learn this high thought : so high as mind 

can aim, 
So high as soul her grand ideal marks, 
Thus high can human deeds at length ascend, 
Thus much can human hands and lips achieve. 
O Zeal ! why wert thou in this old blind 

world 
Enkindled — brand of Hell — to devastate 
The beautiful and lovely with the sweep 
Of thy wild besom ? Zeal, the bigot's plea, 
Occasion and excuse of many crimes ! 
Alas ! that zeal such fatal blunders made ! 
Else were the tale of Christian centuries 
An epos of sublimest deeds and thoughts 
And not the lurid history of fiends, 
Who lurked behind the sacred cross, or, 

gowned 
And stoled, swung censers, or with tedious 

pomp 

95 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



Droned through their fixed sonorous rituals. 

But ages fled. The young Ekklesia, 
A timid band by Rome's hard hand oppressed, 
Grew by oppression till she lorded Rome 
And ruled. With what a sacrifice ! She lost 
All that Mount Olivet and Calvary 
Bequeathed of love and faith and tenderness 
And manly courage to defend the truth. 
She won imperialism and heathen rites 
And heathen dogma and philosophy. 
Jesus, the Brother and familiar Friend 
The Helper meek, and sweet Didaskalos, 
Was thrust idolatrously in a niche 
And named a God. A million souls forgot 
The mighty God unseen who rules the world 
And played with riddles of triunity. 
Seal, Clio, fast within thine awful scroll 
This tale, lest men all unawares should learn 
How grew this jesulatrian fetichism, 
This spirit-dwarfing tyrannous creed-curse, 
96 



Jesus of nazareth. 



And, undeceived, in their hot wrath should 

tear 
Their fetters, and in freedom's new-found 

strength 
Iconoclastic, smite the idol down! 

Great God, have mercy on this old blind 

world ! 
And Thou, sweet Soul of Galilee, if Thou 
In some serene blue sphere of heaven be- 

holdest 
The millions bending to thy imaged wounds. 
And hearest the passionate prayers sent up 

to Thee, 
And the full-throated Allelujas flung 
From wine-kissed lips to honor Thee as God, 
How must Thy brow and cheeks in anger 

burn 
To hear the endless roll of blasphemy! 
To know Thy ministry all, all in vain, 
How must thy heart with indignation swell 
97 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



And every pulse throb out its bitter wrath ! 
Nay, that were less than human. Thou 

wouldst look 
With tears of pity and compassion mild 
From this, Thy daily crucifixion, up 
To the Eternal G'od, and cry again 
Pathetic sweet Thy latest prayer ; *' Father, 
Forgive them, for they know not what they 

do!" 






98 



/r\y Qreed. 
f 

T^TTY creed ? my creed, you ask.? And is a 
/ creed 

The living bread wherewith to stay the plague 
Of hunger in a man ? I have no creed, — 
For havings must be less than havers are ! — 
I am my creed, — and when the last pulse-beat 
Makes period to the struggle of my life, 
Behold the best confession in the deed ! 
A sketch, a skeleton, but still the best, 
For words are clanging empty earthen jars 
That take in wine or poison as you will. 
I am my creed, — naught less than my whole 

self, — 
My strivings, had they fair fruition borne, 
My dreams for others' weal, had all come true, 

99 



MY CREED. 



My hopes for after times, were all fulfilled, 
My aspirations looking from the top 
Of mounts unclimbed by living men, all these 
My creed, and yet not half the creed I mean ? 

Credo ! credo ■ ! fill in the rest, 

O Priest, 
And damn or save by answered nay or yea. 
And I'm your slave, and run at your behest, 
A fair deserving ass, but not a man: 
But let me fill the blanks with deeds, not 

words, — 
There never stood akinglier man of men. 
None larger-hearted in the battle's brunt ! 

My hands into the hoary sea I dip 
To clutch a handful of its mystery. 
In vain ! The brine slips back into the deep ! 
So words are only wet with mystery 
And hold no part of the eternal Truth. 

A form of words ? A fossil in the drift, 
A shell commodious for a slender life, 

lOO 



MY CREED. 



Dead words dug up ? And living words so 

vain ? 
Go, leave me, Priest, a lie from heedless lips 
Can damn as swiftly as the truth can save. 
I know too little to affirm so much. 

Close up the Book, and clasp its ponderous 
lids! 
'Tis all too dead ! Go, lay it in a crypt ! 
Conceal it from the eyes of living men, 
Lest its too human gods be proven false, 
And its too little heavens be burst in twain, 
And its too withered earth grow green 
with hope, 
And its too brutal man be found more kind, 
And its too trivial law be all outgrown. 
The oak heeds not the burr that once "en- 
cased 
The germ of root and trunk and myriad leaf. 
So I can not re-enter that cramped cell 
That housed and fed the hopes of ages gone. 

lOI 



MY CREED. 



I bask in sunshine of a larger world 
And wrestle with the storms of times un- 
born ! 

I am the touchstone of the living Truth, 
And patriarch and prophet are to me 
But phantoms and elohifn of the dead. 
No man stands vicar twixt the world and me, 
Though scores of centuries have rolled be- 
tween 
And hung a nimbus round his rugged brow. 

The Soul is little, but the greatest thing 
That had its birth in cosmic throes. I stand 
With open avenues of sense, insphered. 
Encircled by the ranked infinities 
Of Time and Space, of Matter, Force and 

Law, 
And ranked infinitesimals beneath 
My ken as far as infinite transcends. 
Conceivable to inconceivable 
With swift ascent from the soul's radiant 
1 02 



MY CREED. 



Flies thought and finds no resting-place secure. 
Can Faith set pillars on the Absolute 
And rear aloft their mighty capitals 
Into the Relative ? The Mystery 
O'er-topples them into the void abyss 
Unsearchable, and Faith lights nearer home 
On symbols, dreaming that her pillars stand. 
Is there a guide of stronger wing ? I fly 
On equal wing with him who dares the most, 
And yield not in the illimitable Vast ! 

Bring me the Book, O Priest ! Unclasp the 
lids, 
And I will test it. Look you ! here is gold, — 
A grain or two half hid in bulky dross, — 
A gem that sparkles in a waste of sand, — 
A flower blooming in a wide morass, — 
A crumb of bread lost in a stinking slime, — • 
A little wine to scent the lingering dregs, — 
A human thing, not worse than other books. 
Nor better than the age that gave it birth. 
103 



MY CREED. 



I take the good and cast aside the dross 
Eclectic ! Bring the baskets ! Gather up 
The gods and devils, the cosmogonies, 
The myths and tales of wonder-mongering 

scribes, 
The dullard chronicles of priests and kings, 
The men of God's own heart ungibbeted, 
The axes red and wet with sacrifice, 
The stars, the crosses, and the sepulchers ! 
Preserve the fragments of my meager feast 
To feed your starveling followers withal, 
Whose taste for living Truth is not so nice ! 
Believe in God ! Not one that I can think. 
Nor one that w^ords of thine can name me. 

Priest ; 
Much less a petty tyrant of the skies 
Born in the shallow brains of one rude clan 
And throned above the godlings of the rest 
By brutal slaughter. Men have made their gods 
In their own image, mingled best and worst. 
104 



MY CREED. 



You cut the garment of the Universe 
Too small, too antic, for a masquerade 
More fit ! But make it whole, without a seam: 
I'll wear it, wrap it round my little life. 
Nor ask it purple, broidered round with gold! 

The All is not negation. Infinite Yea, 
Than utter which unworthily, I'll pluck 
My tongue away, and be forever mute, — 
A boundless Affirmation, thou and I 
But words, O Priest, and meaningless until 
The last is uttered. Shall we guess the rest, 
And swear our little guess is all in all } — • 
A Harmony whereof the simplest theme 
Is yet unsung, and thou and I, O Priest, 
But notes at random flung, discordant^ harsh. 
And shall we guess the burden of the theme, 
And swear that we have learned the sym- 
phony, 
Rehearsed it through and through ? Love all 
thou canst, 

105 



MY CREED. 



Dream all thou canst, strive all thou canst, 

O Man, 
And when the heart and brain and soul are 

full 
Of thoughts unutterable, name it God, 
If names can tangle in a mesh of sound 
The soul of that transcendent hour ! For me, 
Be nameless, thou illimitable All ! 

Accept God's word ? A very cunning God, 
To make a Book, whose every trivial text 
Can damn a heretic or save a saint, 
And yet, chameleon-like, take on the shade 
Of each brand-new expounder ! Noble work ! 
The sheltering rock of every error known ! 
Curved mirror of the world without a focus I 
What boots it if a god inspire the tale, 
If truth must filter through the human brains 
Of barbarous men, whose world was flat and 

square, 
Poured round by four huge rivers, like a sea, 
1 06 



MY CREED. 



Roofed o'er with crystal, set on pillars four, 
With sun and moon and stars hung out for 

signs, 
A huge World-tabernacle built for man. 
And filled with demons, a brute helpless realm 
Devoid of order, where a whim was law 
And cause confounded with supreme caprice ? 
But cleanse the filters, Priest ! Make sweet 

and clean 
The vessel that contains the Water of Life ! 
Distil and redistil with chemic skill 
Its living spirit, lest it still be crude ! 

Poor groping groveling herd, that bring 
their gifts 
To gorge thee. Priest, with fatness and with 

wine. 
To clothe thee, not in hodden grey, like 

theirs. 
But purple and gold, for thy poor recom- 
pense 

107 



MY CREED. 



Of prayer and wrestling with a changeless god, 
Who never heard a prayer in all the ages ! 
I pity them, so blind they spurn my pity 
And hug their blessed chains and slavery, 
But from the deepest springs of being flows 
My pity, gilded Fraud, for thee, whose brain 
Can catch the glimmer of the whitening 

dawn. 
Who know the Truth, thou Whited Sepul- 

cher. 
Yet feed upon their misery, and grind 
Their lives between the mill-stones of thy 

gods ! 
What name can measure thy stupidity. 
Poor dumb vice-gerent of a helpless Ghost ! 
Or else, what name can sum the enormity 
Of thy huge crime, thou Vampire of the 

Night, 
Sucking the life-blood from their nerveless 

limbs, 

1 08 



MY CREED. 



While fanning them to sleep with hopes of 
heaven ! 
O Nous ! O mighty Mind ! O Reason 
strong ! 
When shall we see thy glorious avatar ? 
When shall thy light illumine this dark world 
And beam resplendent from each upturned 

face 
That spurns its serfdom and adores thy star ? 
Yet a few years ! The patient Age toils on, 
And men and nations pass into decay, 
But Nous keeps record of his constant gains, 
And broods above his mighty victories 
Imperishable ! Then at length shall come 
A noble race, large-brained, warm-hearted, 

free. 
Whose heritage is Truth ! Thus age by age 
The bible of our race is slowly writ. 
Its texts inscribed in flame and blood and 
tears, 

109 



MY CREED. 



Each age inscribes its noblest word and dies. 
The next outgrows it and lets fall a tear 
On each mistake and blots it from the page. 
God's word ? Man's rather ! Conquests of 
his mind ! 
What tricks the thaumaturgic fancy plays 
Within the madhouse of the mystic's brain ! 
O Priest, the image of thy risen Lord 
Is but the Ideal of expanding Soul 
That struggles to emancipate from pain 
The writhing, torturing Real. And thy 

boast 
That he is lord of this last mighty age, 
And Lord of lords for ages yet to be, 
Is but an epitaph, — a fiction kind, — 
The baseless tribute of a blinded zeal 
That loves to gape in wonder at plain things, 
And wrap them in a shroud of mystery ! 
Historic Jesus, good, forgotten man. 
Whose ashes rest in peace in Galilee, 
no 



MY CREED. 



(O fortunate misfortune ! ) lowly born, 
Obscurely living, mild-eyed Dreamer, mad 
With thy celestial vision, fed with hopes 
Of hopeless conquest, rise from out the 

obscure. 
And open those blind eyes which see not 

thee ! 
Nay, rise not from obscure and dusty sleep 
To wake them from their gilded dream ! 

For lo ! 
Thy slender genius is begodded now ! 
Thy name enthroned above the loftiest, 
And millions worship their late-formed Ideal, 
And name it thee ! O manifold vast Life, 
Expansive Soul of man, why worship names 
Whose bearers' best was but a slender brook 
To our broad Niles of harvest-bearing thought? 

O Man, thou mighty Herakles, awake, 
Tear from thy quivering flesh the Nessus 

shirt 

III 



MY CREED. 



Whose venom poisons thee at every pore ! 
Hew down the deadly Hydra of misfaith, 
And in his blood baptize thy wounded limbs 
Till they are sheathed in horn, a firm defense 
Against the shafts of scorn and strokes of 

hate 
Aimed by the blind old giant, Prejudice ! 
Go, leave me, Priest, thy proffered bread 
and wine 
Is bitterness of gall upon my tongue 
And stench within my nostrils, as of blood 
On sodden fields of death, — too small a price 
To pay for kneeling to the lifted Host ! 
I am a living god ; my words are Life, 
And Life abundant in the age to come 
Will cast the burden of thy corpse-like 

weight 
From off the manly shoulders of our race 
And free it from the pother of thy Gods ! 



112 






When Life's subtle chemistry 

Loses its power, 
And in Death's triumph 
My dust is but dust 

What destiny ? 



^^HALL it feed a magnificent pine 

In centennial woods, 
Striving upward from gloom and darkness, 
Mounting straight to the clear blue skies, 

But pining and sighing 
For heights it can never reach ? 
I have been like a pine 

In forest gloom, 
Pining and sighing for far blue skies 
And the unattainable heights. 

Yet this is Life ! 

113 



MY DUST, 



Shall it feed a giant oak 

And stand alone, 
Struggling with Summer's stormwind 
And grappling the thunderbolt, 

Or gnarled and bare 
Burdened with Winter's snow ? 
I have been like an oak, 

I have stood alone 
With the stormwind and thunderbolt 
And the cold cold snows. 

And this is Life ! 



114 



MY DUST. 



y 



Shall it feed the maize and the wheat 

Through bounteous moons, 
Waving green in the summer breezes, 
Waving gold in the autumn sun, 

Yielding bread 
To be eaten in thanklessness ? 
I have been like the grain 

With its green and its gold, 
Growing and ripening till Autumn's sun 
That a hungering world might eat. 

But this is Life ! 



115 



MY DUST. 



Shall it feed a perfect flower, 

And peep from the grass, 
Basking in Summer's sunshine. 
Drinking the cool sweet dew, 

And be plucked by Love 
To lie. on her bosom fair? 
I have been like a flower 

Low hid in the grass. 
I have blossomed in sunshine and dew, 
And lain on the bosom of Love. 

And this is Life ! 

O Death, where is thy sting ! 
Though we die and are dust, 
We shall live again, 
Somehow, somewhere. 

There is no death ! 



«^ 



ii6 



fra(^[T\2T)t from Uppublisl^ed 
f[\as^ue. 

V'yiE say " Thank God ! " and close the 
^^^ ranked pearls 
Behind our lips, lest echoes sound within 
And wake the slumberer. Oh that the words 
Were truly meant ! In intellectual cold 
We know ourselves a part of cosmic law 
And view entranced the individual yield 
His good, his being, that the whole may 

thrive, 
And cry with keen approval, like a god, 
" Whatever is, is right ! " But when the flood 
Bursts from the hills and lays our fields ni 

ruin. 
When earth-quake whelms our city with its 

stroke, 

117 



FRAGMENT FROM UNPUBLISHED MASQUE. 



When pestilence robs us of friends we loved 
Or blights our comeliness with hateful scars, 
We straight complain, and curse the wof ul day 
That gave us being. Are we then so great 
That God must be a fellow in our play 
And stop his spinning worlds to humor us ? 

Shines yonder star but to dispel my dark? 
Beams yonder orb with pale reflected light 
But to compel my thoughts to love and 

peace ? 
Stands this firm rock but to support my feet ? 
Roars yonder Ocean in his bellowing caves 
But to delight with song my greedy ear ? 
Though it were written in ten thousand books 
And graven deep on tables of hewn stone 
That all this world of worlds was built for man, 
I'd hold it still a fable born of pride. 
The stars are bawbles. Earth*s a bawble. All 
Are gilded bawbles. Man's a bawble too. 
And why make bawbles for a bawble's sport.? 
ii8 



FRAGMENT FROM UNPUBLISHED MASQUE, 



I know, if purpose be a law of things, 
We move to some far-off diviner goal 
Than seers have dreamed. Men are but 

incidents, 
But dust disturbed a moment in the march 
Of the Omnipotent, — then dust again. 
If Thy divine intent doth traverse mine, 
I thank Thee, knowing all is right with Thee. 
I know? What can I know ? What is it 
to know? 
To comprehend a thing and fix its bounds ? 
Whose limits can I fix but mine own soul's ? 
I think. I am. So much, no more, I know. 
And he who claims a larger ken, presumes, 
Transmutes his fancies into truth ! O Faith, 
O truest Truth, but hair's-breadth wide of 

knowledge. 
Thou art not knowledge, but the life of 

life! 
Anrl yet the seed of error lies in thee 
119 



FRAGMENT FROM UNPUBLISHED MASQUE. 



That springs and spreads its poisonous Upas 

shade 
Above Earth's loveliest ! O life ! O blight ! 
We live by faith. Then faith must build her 

eyrie 
On juts of granite truth lit by the sun. 
O Thou, the Many-named, matchless Un- 
known, 
What Thy pure essence is none knows save 

Thee. 
To me, Thou art but me idealized, 
But me grown mighty, stripped of Space and 

Time, 
I made Thee in my image glorified ! 
And Thou unending Cosmos — world of 

worlds — 
Art me, transformed, unstripped of Space 

and Time, 
I made Thee what thou art by thinking Thee ! 
And when Night calleth unto Night sublime, 
1 20 



FRAGMENT FROM UNPUBLISHED MASQUE. 



And Day doth utter knowledge unto Day, 
And all proclaim Thy glorious handiwork 
My soul, not they, is speaking ! Thunder- 
bolts 
That rive thy ancient cedars, Lebanon, 
And bellow thousand-echoed on thy hills 
Are voiceless till I give them human speech ! 
Thy flood, old Nilus, is but fated silt 
Till I have named thee the Beneficent, 
The Harvest-bearer ! All the varied speech 
Of visible Nature, sung by bards of Old, 
All revelations of the Infinite Will, 
Are monologues of Soul, that hears en- 
tranced 
Her own pure melody resound from all. 
Aye thus have sprung the sweetest flowers 
of faith, 
Half choked with noxious weeds, indigenous 
To this same fruitful valley. Weeds and 
flowers ! 

121 



FRAGMENT FROM UNPUBLISHED MASQUE. 



The task of ages is to purge Maremma 

Of foulness, and choke out the thrift of 

weeds 
That hide the lily's whiteness and perfume ! 
I am Thy Gardener, O God, self -set, 
To trim Thy valley's wild luxuriance ! 




122 



f\ Qordo9 of Soppets. 



Christus. 

^^HE pure heart is the Christus. Not alone 
To the star-heralded Judean came 
The Ineffable Presence, from the common 
shame 
Of low ideals into baseness grown 
Lifting to boundless faith and selflessness. 
It comes, the immanent God, to every soul 
That struggles upward to the perfect goal 
Where love is all and self is nothingness. 
With time the old faith broadens to the new. 

The Christus is not one alone, but all 
Who dare in loving trust to struggle through 
To deep soul-peace, true to the inward call, 
Though bearing crosses and sharp crowns of 

thorn. 
In such as these the Lord Christ is reborn. 
123 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



US 



Truth, The Redemptor. 

^^'RUTH is the soul's redemptor. Human 

^ blood 

Out gushing on ten thousand Calvaries 
From very gods in deathless agonies, 

Can not atone by its empurpling flood 

For one weak fault of thine. Evil and Good,- 
Intrinsic deeds, intrinsic purposes, — 
Are not vicarious things. Purpurea! seas 

Can not, though fed from streams on Holy 
Rood, 

Wash white another's sin, make evil good, 
Or purchase back to men lost purity. 

O Man, be true to thine own soul's self-hood, 
And the great purchase-price is paid for 
thee ! 

The bitter wine-press of all wrath is trod, 

And thou art free to stand before thy God. 
124 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



Faith. 

^^HE eyes of God ! O fond idolater, 
^"^ For thee and me his eyes are thine and 
mine ! 
The God we glibly talk of and define, 
We chiseled out. The great Consolator 
Who thrones in cloud above Earth's misery, 
For aught we know, is grand but empty 

fiction 
Of souls that struggle on through deep 
affliction. 
And hope till faith believes the revery ! 
We grope in night, and all we know is feeling. 
Yet, Soul, dream on, and build me gods 

and shrines 
And hopes that warm heart's-blood incar- 
nadines ! 
Such things are faith to live by, full of healing. 
And toil by daily in the direst need. 
But not to swear by in an iron creed. 
125 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



Atonement. 

"TfTONEMENT is the perfect self-sur- 
render 
Of man's finiteness to the Infinite, 
No passive task, but manhood's choicest 
right, 
In consecrated thought and toil to render 
Each day its fulness of glad services, 

And with diviner instincts move the will, 
Instilling it with larger ends, until 
Its meanest purpose with His thought agrees. 
How mean the fiction of the Most High God 
In his lone wrathful majesty enthroned. 
Demanding justice of a race disowned, 
At length appeased by the bleeding feet that 
trod. 
Spotless of guilt, to death on Calvary ! 
Just God, forgive the age-long blasphemy ! 
126 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



n 



Resurrection. 

yyVHEN soul is prisoned in an ancient 
^** thought 

As in a tower no broader than the age 
That fashioned it, when, purblind, every sage 
Looks back for truth, and counts the future 

naught, 
When scholars pore for years o'er musty 
books 
To find the fashion and the form of truth, 
Fire-eyed, majestic, in his purple youth. 
The new Age thunders godlike, " Fi'a^ Luxl " 
The star-winged Bard takes up the trumpet 
blast ; — 
" Beat down the towers, crumble stone 

from stone. 
Look forward, cast aside the ancient scroll, 
No creed, no word is e'er the best and last ! " 
Within the walls the emancipating tone 
I hear, and then 'tis Easter in my soul ! 
127 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



* 



The Everlasting Life. 

*T KNOW no Blessed Isles beyond the main, 
"^ Nor Island Valley of Avilion, 

Where disembodied spirits still live on, 
Nor change nor die nor suffer any pain ! 
I only know the throbbings of my brain 

Are deathless as Apollo's beams of Dawn. 

And so I toil till his light is withdrawn, 
Though winds of Fate blow keen with hail 

and rain. 
I am a part of Cosmic Force, and come 
From Everlasting, swayed by brazen Doom. 
In moulding worlds some godlike part I bear. 
I know not wherefore, yet cannot despair, 
Somehow, somewhere, in deathless cycles 

drawn, 
This Life that lives in me shall still live on. 



128 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



^ 



Transfiguration. 

-T^HE spirit grows by action. Each new 
^■^ thought, 

Each purpose held in reason's firm control, 
Each deed by persevering nobly wrought, 

By cumulative force upbuilds the soul. 
Daily the gradual transformation grows 

Out of dead self to living selflessness. 
Divesting soul of her deceptive shows, 

And clothing her in simple perfectness. 
And thus ascending to the summit grand, 

Old comradeships that charmed are back- 
ward cast, 
Forsaken as the higher life unfolds, 
And as great thoughts and purposes expand. 

In purple sunset glow, the soul, at last. 
Herself, transfigured as a god, beholds. 



129 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



% 



Immortality. 

*¥" SAID that Life is but the tissue's change, 
And thought but subtle chemistry of 
brain, 
That learned doctors' ponderous tomes 
make plain, 
Our life is but the amoeba's narrow range 
From death through life to death again. At 
length 
I paused before an open grave, the goal 
Of funeral pomp for my dead love. My soul, 
Wringing from anguish keen exultant 

strength, 
Cried ; "Vain are all man's cold philosophies, 
His ponderous tomes are monstrous cruel lies! 
Surreit Amorf'' Aye beside the tomb 
The flower of Immortality doth bloom ! 
Yet would my soul could once for all decide, 
if Reason faltered, or Affection lied ! 
130 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



Calvary. 

T^O truth is won save on the tragic crest 
/Of new-climbed Calvaries, where the 
bawling mob, 
Whose wildered hearts with nameless ter- 
ror throb. 
Pursue with clubs and staves who dared divest 
Their world of one more shadow, fearing lest 
The unwonted light should make the uni- 
verse 
Too luminous to hold a God, or worse, 
Should fill men's souls with generous unrest 
Until at length their fathers' ancient faiths 
Grew all uncouth though builded on " God- 

saiths." 
For each new syllable of Truth we learn 

A prophet dies, and all along the line 
Of its triumphant course, the martyrs burn, 
But Truth is God's Light, quenchless and 
divine. 

131 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 

••• 

• 

Ekklesia. 

TT GOTHIC sheep-fold, and a well-fed flock, 

God snugly housed and hedged all round 

about. 

And all the ragged waifs of Earth pent out 

Lest their rude cries of sin and shame should 

mock 
The long-aisled sanctity, and lo ! a Church ! 
Do gothic windows shut in God, or keep 
In cushioned Sabbath ease his chosen 
sheep ? 
Go rather to the wilderness and search ! 
God is as wide and deep as heaven and earth, 

His sheep-fold is the teeming universe. 
His priests and prophets those high souls of 
worth 
That lift from toiling millions their hard 
curse 
Of penury and sin. When understood 
The Church is joyous human brotherhood. 
132 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



Qethsemane. 

npO watch the tragedy of life, that moves 
* Upon this stage, from each new curtain- 
lift, 
Through all the hurrying scenes that 
change and shift 
With harrow and alack of wounded loves, 
And silken culture jostled with the droves 
Of unkempt helplessness, as fall the dice 
Of Fate, Good throttled in the clutch of 
Vice, — 
Cold adders coiling round the nests of 

doves, — 
Till the curtain falls upon an empty stage, 
And the vain show is done, — to sit and 

watch, 
A helpless spectator of misery 
All throbbing with divine will to assuage 
The endless agony, — to wait and watch, — 
This is thy midnight hour, Gethsemane ! 
133 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



» 



Olivet. 

'T^HE Truth shines outward and not in. 
The whole 

Wide vasty space of star-sown heavens 
can. wake 

No thought, no sense, nor new ideal make 
Whose germ lay not potential in the soul. 
The souF is but infolded Truth, its goal 

The long unfolding for its own high sake, 

And life's rude conflict crowned with pain 
and ache 
The unclasping of the folds as they unroll ! 
Thus, age by age, the light grows more serene 
And white, as each new prophet's torch is seen 
On higher Olivets, and the firm soul. 
With radiant face, points upward to the goal, 
Excelsior ! Ring out the vanward call 
Till, beatific, Truth is all in all ! 

134 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 

The Parak!ete. 

yjjPTHEN dark Despair, in some lone scep- 
^^^ tic hour, 

Breathes on the Soul his noxious atmo- 
sphere, 

And gulfs of night are yawning deep and 

near. 
And storm-clouds of black Death and Doom 

do lower, 
And all the lights of heaven feel the power 
Of bUght and pestilence, and all men hear 
The croak of ravens ominous and clear, 
And life is withered ere it come to flower, 
O mighty Soul of Manhood, Spirit strong, 

O Paraklete, O Light unquenchable. 
Faith, Hope and Love, triumphant over 
wrong, 
O Graces most serene, of life most full, 
O triune Strength of Soul, to cheer and bless, 
Thou wilt not leave us wholly comfortless ! 
135 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



^ 



Hypatla. 

"LJYPATIA, spotless virgin, vestal-pure, 
Stripped of her chaste Ionic robe of 
snow, 
Struck down by monks of Nitria, below 
The image of the pitying Christ ! Adjure 
The host to spare her, young Philammon ! 
Vain ! 
The black mob surge upon the altar rail 
To glut her blood ! One wild despairing 
wail 
Parts her white lips. Philosophy is slain ! 
Orestes, lo ! thy work and Cyril's ! Thou 
With unchaste purpose and perfidious vow 
Hast lured the Teacher from her Academe, 
To grace the ruin of thy fatal dream 
Of power. Cyril has made his sacrifice 
Of heathen blood. O God, was this 
thy price ? 

136 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



1« 



To a Serpent. 

I. 

POOR timid creature gliding through the 
grass, 
A tortuous beam of purple-mailed light, 
Fleeing from man thy old arch-slanderer's 
sight 
To seek asylum till his foot shall pass ! 
I hate thee not, poor harmless friend, like men 
That pause in serious toil to mangle thee. 
For thou hast still some slight divinity, 
Though lurking in the slime of this dark fen, 
Unwinged and songless, in perpetual dew 
Of foulness, and mayhap in life's great plan 
Thou hast as fair a use as they that span 
Bright wings and hover in etherial blue, 
Pulsating clouds of vocal deity 
To burst in floods of rapturous melody, 
137 



A CORDON OF SONNETS. 



II. 



Nor will I charge thee with the floods of sin 
That welter round the tangled lives of men 
With poisonous airs from Death's wide 
stagnant fen, 
Until I learn where Good and 111 begin. 
And yet, poor hapless wight, thou art to 
me — 
Since the world-hoary myth hath made 

thee so — 
The symbol of innumerable woe 
And deep immeasurable misery ! 
I hate old Envy's poisoned fangs that kill 
Content, and Slander's red and odious 

tongue. 
And dark Suspicion writhing swift among 
Fair names, besliming noble hearts, but still, 
I hate thee not. Away, unharmed and 

free, 
And may my serpent thoughts escape 
with thee ! 

138 



Jl^e Birtt; of a (Jod 



'TpHOU mighty Silence in the roar of 

worlds, 
Majestic, moveless in the drift of Time, 
Fixed End and Altitude of things, with Thee 
The soul is calm. To Thee^ with choice sub- 
lime, 
Through deathless conquest of appearances, 
And gentle march athwart chaotic Night 
And leaden headlong-hurling Institutes, 
Through frozen palaces of formal ice, 
Mid world-old constitutions, codes and 

creeds, — 
The serpent-slough of ancient yesterdays, — 
She mounts, star-eyed for primal Truth and 

Light, 
Star-pinioned strong for heaven-scaling flight 
Beyond the dark obscure, star-shod to climb 
139 



THE BIRTH OF A GOD. 



From world abysses o'er the crags of Time •' 
Impelled by kinship with the primal Good, 
She sweeps magnetic from her nether orb, 
Far-mounting unto Thee, at one with Thee, 
In Thy repose, cloud-girdled! Having touched 
The midmost Sun of the celestial fires. 
As once Prometheus, she at length shall 

stand 
Embodied Fire, — a portent to the Age, — 
A wild rock Pharos lit by Titan hands. 
Wide flashing through the void Immensities 
Of Space and Time, from its firm-centred 

rest, — 
Foreboding swift convulsion and wide wreck 
And palingenesis to nobler life ! 
Thus, one by one, on missions of uplift. 
Great Souls are born, and, with compulsion 

strong. 
Bring Order out of Chaos, and behold ! 
The Chaos owns a Hero and a God ! 
140 



|^^i)ostieism. 

T KNOW not if there be, 
"^ Following invisibly, 
Angels protecting me, 
Nor would I care, 
Though cohorts of celestial spies 
With Argus eyes 
Should wheel about me in the cool sweet air ! 



I know not if there be. 
Ruling almightily, 
A Judge approving me, 
Nor would I care, 
Though from his cloud-engirdled throne 
In thunder tone 
He hurled me curses through the vibrant air I 



41 



AGNOSTICISM. 



I only know there be 
Things that my soul should flee 
To live exaltedly, 
And these I dare, 
Though God and his hosts celestial 
Desert me all, 
To loathe and shun like pestilential air ! 

I only know there be 
Voices that speak to me 
Out of Life's mystery. 
And these I dare 
To hear, though heaven's high tribunal 
Proclaim them all 
The lying hiss of demons in God's pure air! 



¥ 



142 



Jl70U(5[7ts, 



I. 

"T^HAT the dead are dead and the living 
are here 
Is the obvious stern reality, 
However we dream of fair realms beyond 
And chatter of immortality ! 
1 1. 
What is the prophet's dream to me ? 

What is the stroke of the psalmist's lyre ? 
When the bosom of love has ceased to heave 
And the broken eyes have lost their fire ? 
III. 
The parting is over, — the keenest pang, — 

We meet no more till the close of day, 
And then if we're left to moulder alone. 

What more can be suffered ? 'Tis over 
for aye ! 

143 



THOUGHTS. 



IV. 

The sense of living is stronger than thought, 
The sense of loss is stronger than dreams, 

And the visions that float through a mist of 
tears 
Are cold and chill as the Stygian stream's. 

v. 
Dearer to me is the simple creed 

That the all of living is to be just, 
Whether the end be gates of pearl 

Or only a handful of worthless dust. 

VI. 

Despite the best words ever sung, 

The grave has a smell of dust and mould, 

And the heart that is beating fast and warm 
Shrinks from the everlasting cold. 



144 



/T\y pious Qofnforters. 

TOU wish I could think like you ? It would 
comfort me in my grief 
To rest in the arms of Faith, and learn God's 

sweet relief? 
For Death is a door, you say, and not an 

impa&sable wall, 
And the ears of Faith can hear, from beyond, 

the immortals' call ? 
Dear soul, you may mean it well ! It will 

do, perchance, for you, 
But I'd scream and rend my hair, if I thought 

your dream were true ! 
A door ? Aye, an open door, and I know 

not what beyond. 
But my head is all too clear, and my heart is 

all too fond. 
To divide that realm, like you, into fields of 

glory and blight, 
Where the saved look down on the lost, with 

a burst of wild delight. 
145 



MY PIOUS COMFORTERS. 



Could I look on that dear dead face turned 

tenderly to me 
With the lips just parting the whiskers, those 

lips that seemed to be 
Made for all kindness and kissing, and think 

about Death, like you ? 
For I know how he lived and toiled, and what 

he had striven to do. 
He wasn't quite sure, himself, that priest 

and bishop knew 
Each nook and corner of heaven and the 

narrow way thereto. 
You'd say, he blasphemed at times, and 

laughed at holy things, — 
At the pious fudge of the world, in its infant's 

leading-strings, — 
And his brain was clear and strong, and his 

heart was brave and warm, 
And he basked in the sun of life, and braved 

its wildest storm, 
For he saw that the best of living is living 

here and now. 
Whether a fillet of gold, or a thorn-crown, 

pressed the brow. 
146 



MY PIOUS COMFORTERS. 



If I thought like you, I would know, that his 

soul this very night 
Had entered that— Father, sweet Father! 

I kneel in the failing light. 
By thy side, poor broken Eyes, and swear 

that wherever thou art, 
I will follow thee, where thou art, and bear 

of thy fate my part, 
And love thee, and serve thee, and shield 

thee, a dutiful daughter and true. 
To the last and forever and ever!— Is that 

any comfort to you 
To drive a daughter to madness ? The faith 

of my father is best, 
For heaven were turned into hell, for me, 

without all the rest 
Of the loved ones that founded the home 

and nourished its altar fires 
With quenchless love and trust and devotion 

that never tires. 
Agnostic ? And do I not dread the future ? 

So unprepared ? 
Shall I dread the sweet sleep of that Sleeper? 
The sleep my mother has shared ? 
147 



MY PIOUS COMFORTERS. 



For she rests under the ferns, and the 

myrtle creeps through the grass 
As sweetly to-day as if priests had hallowed 

it with their mass. 
Two unbaptized babes are sleeping beside 

her there, 
All doomed, if I thought like you, beyond a 

hope or a prayer. 
If I dreamed for a moment to-day that I were 

going to heaven, — 
Your heaven, — and all my faults and failings 

would be forgiven, 
And I knew that far away in those dungeons 

of despair 
My father and mother were tortured, beyond 

my love and care, 
I would do some horrible deed, some daring 

and dreadful thing, 
And slay myself, and fly to them both on 

swiftest wing, 
And descend to abysmal gloom, with the 

vision of heaven above, 
And glory in winning hell, for the sake of 

the ones I love ! 

148 



OCT 11 1899 



